


Upstream

by Elsajeni



Category: Star Wars Legends: X-Wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captivity - Captured Together, Character Death Fix, Fix-It, M/M, Stranded in Enemy Territory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 10:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16595879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsajeni/pseuds/Elsajeni
Summary: "Hey," Ton says, and then a little louder, "Hey. What is this, the scenic route? You're going the wrong way.""I'm going back towards your fighter," Face calls back over his shoulder. "We've got options there. And the good news is, they shouldn't be looking for us where they've already searched.""This is a stupid plan.""Come up here and stop me, then," Face says, unperturbed, and keeps walking.





	Upstream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaerstyne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaerstyne/gifts).



He manages, with Face's help, to get settled on the speeder bike in a more-or-less comfortable position, leans back, and says, "All right, driver, let's get moving. And no cute tricks with the meter -- I'm not paying for time that we're stopped."

"Yes, sir," Face says with an exaggerated half-bow. He pauses a minute, looking both ways down the river, and finally hauls the bike around by its lead rope and starts walking upstream.

"Hey," Ton says, and then a little louder, " _Hey_. What is this, the scenic route? You're going the wrong way."

"I'm going back towards your fighter," Face calls back over his shoulder. "We've got options there -- rig an encoded signal and call for help, steal something spaceworthy off the Raptors, hell, if we're really desperate we could both cram into my fighter. And the good news is, they shouldn't be looking for us where they've already searched."

"This is a stupid plan."

"Come up here and stop me, then," Face says, unperturbed, and keeps walking.

* * *

They've been slogging their way upstream -- well, Face has been slogging, Ton has been supervising -- for a couple of hours, and made it as far as a clearing where the river bends that would be pretty under other circumstances, when a blaster bolt whines out of the woods and past the speeder bike, close enough that Ton can feel the heat of it, and a tree on the other side of the river explodes into flaming splinters.

"Fuck," Ton yelps, and rolls clumsily off the bike -- hitting the ground is agony, but agony beats getting shot in the throat. "Face!"

"Get under cover," Face bellows back, and moves to take his own advice, diving at the closest tree.

The second shot goes wide, too, and Ton, sweating and cursing, takes the opportunity to drag himself behind a bush and out of the line of fire. He's upright and fumbling for his own blaster when the third shot out of the woods finds its mark, and the speeder bike blows up with a deep _whump_ and a hail of hot plasteel fragments.

The blast sends Ton sprawling, and blinds him for a few seconds, even the optic unable to see much through the dust. He struggles to his hands and knees in the middle of a dust cloud, coughing, and as his vision clears he's already casting around for deeper cover -- whoever's firing at them will have lost sight of them in the smoke, if they can get out of sight they'll at least have the advantage of surprise when their ambushers come looking for them.

"Face," he says, in what he hopes is a whisper -- he can't really hear himself. "Hey. Where--" He shuts up mid-sentence as it occurs to him that, if he can't hear anything, Face probably can't either.

He's expecting Face to come stumbling up next to him, or to pop up from a hiding place, maybe, and wave him over. But there's no movement in the clearing but his own, nothing--

He's moving at a sprint, with no regard for the pain it causes him, before he's even really processed what he's looking at. Face is down, sprawled awkwardly in the dirt on the other side of the clearing, and he's not moving, fuck, _fuck_ \--

By the time Ton gets to him he's starting to stir, which is some comfort; Ton doesn't slow down, still hits the ground next to him in an awkward running slide, but he can feel his chest unclench a little, the specter of panic receding. "Hey," he says, sharply, risking being a little loud -- he can hear his own voice again, hopefully Face can too. "Hey, talk to me. Give me your name and rank."

He's doing half an exam as he talks, rushed and frantic, though the results are mostly encouraging: no apparent skull fractures, no major bleeding -- at least it seems like they'll both live long enough to be tracked down and shot. Face only answers with a groan, though, and Ton grimaces. "Speak up. Do you know where you are?"

This time Face mumbles something that sounds like _ground_ , which seems about right. Incoherent, probably badly concussed, barely responsive enough to be classed as conscious, but at least he's retained the capacity for sarcasm.

He's very aware of seconds ticking away. Plan A, Avoid Detection, is scuttled -- whoever fired on them hasn't turned up in person yet, but being blown up pretty clearly counts as being _detected_. Plan B, Run For It, is a no-hoper in their current condition; he certainly can't run, and he doubts Face could even stand without help. Which puts Plan C, Face Bluffs Our Way Out Of This Somehow, out of commission too.

 _Son of a--_ They're dead. They're absolutely dead. Ton briefly considers Plan D, Fuck It, Just Lie Down And Die -- _you're dead already, what difference does it make? You have been for years. This is just your body catching up to the rest of you._

He's used to that little voice. It's a part of him, one he's carried for years. Less familiar is the traitorous little voice that pipes up to interrupt it: _Face isn't. Doesn't have to be._

Ton swears under his breath, shakes his head hard, as if that'll help him focus. He's still rattled, barely keeping back from the edge of panic, and even before the explosion he wasn't feeling exactly _lucid_. He tries to bully his thoughts into something resembling order -- Plan E, call it Stall For Time. They'll get under some kind of cover, out of sight, buy themselves a minute or two. If they're lucky -- _for once in my damn life I'd like to be lucky_ \-- maybe it'll only be one searcher who finds them, someone they can take from ambush and win a little more time. And with a few minutes for Face to recover his senses, they can come up with an actual plan, something that might actually get them out of here--

\-- _or_ , he'll look up and find himself already surrounded by four stormtroopers, a Raptor officer on a speeder bike slowing to a stop behind them.

One trooper gestures with his rifle, and Ton straightens up slowly on his knees, hands up. "Stay down and keep your mouth shut," he mutters to Face, and then looks back up at the stormtroopers. "What do you want?"

"Members of the Hawk-bat pirate group, I presume." The officer glances at her datapad. "Records of your communications suggest one of the fighters that went down was the group's leader. General Kargin?"

For a second Ton considers claiming to be Kargin. He can't think of how it would help; he just feels an instinct to lie to Zsinj's operatives at every opportunity. On the other hand, if they have even a vague idea of what Kargin is supposed to look like -- or sound like, for that matter -- he'd only be asking for more trouble. And the last thing they need is any of Zsinj's smarter people starting to wonder about Kargin, or poking into his identity, his background.

He settles for glaring and saying, in a low grunt that he hopes sounds piratical, "Not telling you anything."

"Couldn't just make it easy, could you?" The officer turns to one of her troopers. "Just get them on a shuttle. We'll see if a little hospitality can make them more talkative."

* * *

The Raptor captain, playing friendly now that she's got them on the wrong side of a cell door, sighs. "Surely we can be reasonable about this," she says. "You and your friend are hurt. I'm in a position to help you. But I have my own superiors to answer to, and they won't see much value in treating your injuries just so you can sit there and glare at me."

Ton tries not to visibly grimace. He doesn't _think_ Face needs treatment, at least not urgently; he still seems a little disoriented, not thinking straight, but it hasn't been that long, and at least he's improving over time. Head injuries, though… if he were in his own sick bay, he'd put him through some diagnostic scanning, just in case.

But if he were in his own sick bay, the cost of those scans would be, maybe, thirty minutes' wasted time. Here, the risk-benefit calculation is pretty badly thrown off by the two stormtroopers flanking Captain Friendly. By the vision of Captain Friendly at her comm station later, calling back to her superiors on Iron Fist: _I have two of your local pirate friends in my cells, and you'll never guess what they've told me…_

Another wave of chills hits him; he grits his teeth and tries to will himself through it, not to let the guards see just what bad shape he's in. He, on the other hand, _definitely_ needs help, and the sooner the better -- field diagnosis is a tricky game, and field self-diagnosis more so, but it hardly takes a superior intellect to know that something is badly, dangerously wrong.

He has, at a guess, another day or so without any treatment. Maybe less -- it's been a strenuous few hours, and he can feel that every move he makes, even the effort of staying on his feet now, is draining away at what little strength he has left. If she's serious about this, offering medical care if they'll talk...

That temptation, at least, isn't so hard to resist. _What for? What do you have to go back to, that's worth putting your friends in danger?_

"No deal," he says again, and, moving stiffly, turns his back on her.

He can hear another sigh behind him, and then footsteps moving away -- the officer and one stormtrooper, by the sound of it, leaving the other one to keep an eye on them.

Face shifts on his cot, catching Ton's attention. "Making friends and influencing people," he says, his voice a little rough. "I see a future in the diplomatic corps for you."

"Not me. No future, remember?" Ton says, and manages a grim little smile. "How are you feeling?"

"Stop saying that," Face says, instead of answering.

Ton ignores him. "Can you tell me where you are?"

"A shithole jail cell on some shithole planet."

"Not _wrong_ but not very specific; half credit. What planet?"

Face makes a face. "Halmad. Look, I mean it. It upsets me."

"How old are you?" The longer he can keep Face busy with neuro assessment questions, the longer they don't have to talk about this.

That takes Face a moment longer to answer; Ton suspects he's double-checking the math. "Twenty-two. Just-- please. You do have a future. With me, if you'll take it."

There are several seconds of ringing silence in the cell, and then Ton sighs and limps the few steps toward Face's cot. "You were doing so well," he says, bending down to Face's level and making a production of checking his pupils. "And now you're delirious again."

"Get off." Face swats at his hands. "Ton--"

"They're still watching us," Ton warns -- they've been careful about not using names, since they're still supposed to be downed Hawk-bats.

"I don't care." Face reaches for his shoulder, gets a fistful of his flightsuit and pulls him down, in, close. He lets up when their faces are inches apart, not pulling any further but not letting go, either -- leaving it, Ton supposes, for him to decide where they go from here.

This close, it's harder to believe that Face doesn't mean it, that he's blowing smoke just to make Ton feel better. His gaze is steady, level, holding Ton's eye, but there's just the slightest uncertainty in the set of his mouth, the slightest unsteadiness to his breathing--

Ton shuts his eye and lifts his hand to join Face's on his shoulder, gently but firmly pries it loose from the fabric of his flightsuit. "You're not thinking straight," he says, a little sharper edge to it this time. "Get some rest."

He crosses the cell to his own cot, finds the least uncomfortable position and lies still, watching the ceiling. Better, under the circumstances, not to risk a glance back toward Face.

* * *

"Do you think they'll really send a doctor if we talk?"

Ton opens his eye. He can't quite see Face from where he's lying, but he's not willing to risk the pain of moving. "I wouldn't. What's the upside for them?"

"Well, the Hawk-bats' loyalty, for one thing." Face paces around, puts himself in Ton's line of sight. "You think it's a bluff?"

"I think we agree to the deal, we talk, they say 'thank you very much' and take us out back and shoot us."

"Huh." Face raises a hand to his cheek, starts to scratch at the scar makeup again, stops himself before he can do any damage to it. "Not a chance I'm eager to take. So. Keep our mouths shut until we find a way out of here, I guess."

Ton hesitates a moment -- he's not sure he wants to deal with Face's reaction, and he doesn't really _need_ to know, does he? But no, any plan they come up with will have to account for it, and concussed or not, Face has the better tactical sense of the two of them; trying to keep him in the dark just won't work. "Something else. We don't have a lot of time."

Face goes still, one hand still against his cheek; the effect is of someone pantomiming shock. His voice is apprehensive, though. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, _I_ don't have a lot of time." He doesn't meet Face's eyes -- he's not sure which would be worse, to see that he's upset or to see that he isn't. "Maybe it works to our advantage. If we can find a way to get just you out of here--"

"I'm not leaving you here."

"Look, it's not my first choice either. But _if_ …" He manages a crooked smile. "They let you go. They keep me, promising to talk in exchange for your freedom. And before they can get anything useful out of me, I conveniently drop dead."

"No." Face shakes his head. "Not an option. We'll think of something else."

Ton shrugs, and wishes he hadn't -- the motion sets off a fresh wave of pain. He sets his jaw and tries to breathe through it, and as it passes says, "Fine. Just keep in mind there's a time limit."

* * *

"You could fit through that vent in the hallway," Ton points out. It's the third plan he's offered, and probably the stupidest -- he's out of ideas, and on top of that, he can feel that he's not really thinking straight.

He can hear Face shift on his cot, presumably looking that way, and then shift back. "I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a locked door between us and it."

"I'm the big-picture thinker, minor details like 'how do we get the door open' are your department." He pauses, then adds, "If you don't like that, the one where I agree to talk if they let you out's still on the table."

" _No_ , Ton." Face's tone is irritable; it's the fourth or fifth time Ton has circled back to this plan, and he's clearly getting tired of it.

No good. No matter how few alternatives there are -- he's just not going to be able to talk Face into any plan that asks him to leave Ton behind.

Which means they're both going to die here, because Ton is also increasingly sure he won't make it out of this cell. The pain in his gut is worse than ever -- there's no remotely comfortable position now, no movement that doesn't send him into spasms of agony; he's ended up lying on the floor because it's less painful than the cot springs shifting underneath him. More worrying, he's cold and can't get warm, his hands numb and clumsy.

He's expected death. He's… waited for it, in a way. And now it's on the horizon, and suddenly he can't bring himself to face it. Every plan he tries to think through, every straw he grasps at, ends the same way, both of them dead and left to rot on this shithole planet, and every time he comes to that point a new wave of panic comes over him, his breath coming faster and shallower--

 _What the hell is my problem_ , he thinks -- he was expecting to die alone on this rock before Face showed up to play hero, and it wasn't having this effect on him, so why now? What's different?

 _Die alone_. That's it, of course -- he mutters "Idiot" to himself, sourly. Some superior intellect, if it took him half an hour to sort that out. It's not his own likely death that's provoking this sudden sense of dread; it's the prospect of Face dying here, too, the mental image he can't shake of Face's body cold and still on the next mortuary slab over from his.

"You poor dumb fuck," he mutters. "In all your miserable life you make one friend--" even to himself, he shies away from naming it, from admitting that his feelings might go beyond _friend_ or _wingmate_ or _brother-in-arms_ \-- "and you go and get him killed--"

"You're talking to yourself," Face says from the other side of the cell. Ton starts -- he hadn't quite realized he was talking aloud -- and then shudders, pain curling him into a knot; he can hear footsteps, and a second later Face is bending over him, gripping him by the shoulder. "Ton. You all right?"

"Wish I hadn't dragged you into this," he gasps -- right up against the border of what he's willing to say aloud, just lucid enough despite the pain and panic to hold himself back. "You don't deserve it--"

"Now _you're_ delirious," Face says, but there's tension under the smile he puts on. "Ton, just hold still, catch your breath."

"I can't-- I'm going to get you killed, I can't stand it, Face, I--" He can't draw a full breath suddenly, not sure whether it's pure panic or if the crash he's been waiting for is finally coming. He manages to make eye contact with Face, tries to force his voice steadier. "Get out of here. Call that officer, do whatever you have to do, I'll keep her attention and you--"

Another chill cuts him off, and above him Face says, "Oh, _fuck_ this." _Don't argue, it's the best chance you've got_ , Ton wants to say -- but then Face is on his feet, banging on the barred door and shouting. "Hey! Hey, where's that captain? I'll take the deal, get a doctor in here and I'll tell you whatever you want to know--"

There's a little ruckus out in the hall -- he can hear other voices, the stormtrooper on guard calling for his superior. Then the door creaks open, and the Raptor officer comes into the cell, her eyes on Ton. Behind her, the stormtrooper takes a step closer, his blaster carbine held loosely, aimed toward the ground -- he, too, seems focused on Ton, and he clearly doesn't see Face as a threat, probably figuring that anyone yelling for help this loudly is too distraught to be much danger.

That's a mistake. Ton lets his eye fall mostly closed, but keeps his gaze on Face, watches him take a half-step closer to the stormtrooper and say again, "Look, I'll talk, just get a doctor here _now_! Look at him--"

Ton takes that as a cue and arches his back, digging his shoulderblades into the floor -- his plan is to let out a theatrical groan, but the movement really is agonizing, and the noise he makes involuntarily, a sort of wheezing scream, is more attention-getting than anything he could have produced on purpose. It does hold the officer's attention, and the stormtrooper, too, turns his head in Ton's direction, takes another step into the cell--

\-- and Face lunges like a coiled snake, getting his hands on the stormtrooper's blaster before he can react, yanking it toward him and driving its butt up into the gap between the trooper's helmet and his chest-piece.

The stormtrooper drops with a clatter of armor. The Raptor officer starts to turn, hand going for her own blaster; Face has a bead on her, but before he can fire -- _oh, great plan, they'll only hear that halfway around the planet_ \-- Ton grits his teeth and kicks out at the woman's ankles with both feet, probably not doing much damage but tangling her up enough that Face can take a step closer and smash her, too, in the face with the rifle butt.

The officer falls, and Ton curls into a pained little ball for a moment, trying to catch his breath. "Armor," he pants in Face's direction, when he's able to untwist a little, and as Face nods and starts stripping the stormtrooper of his gear, he manages to roll toward the stunned officer and get to work on her belt and holster.

Ton isn't much use, to be honest; he claims the officer's pistol for himself, but Face does most of the work, binding the woman's wrists to her ankles with her own belt and getting into the stormtrooper armor faster than Ton would have thought possible. "Come on," he says as he's pulling the helmet on, and hauls Ton bodily to his feet, waiting out the spasm of pain that wracks him. "Let's go, we're finding a shuttle and getting the hell out of here."

"What?" _No, run, idiot, why do you keep saddling yourself with me?_

"Let's _go_ ," Face repeats, starting to move. "How many times do I have to tell you, I'm not leaving you here. Now quit stalling, those two won't stay out forever."

They've crossed most of the compound, aiming for the landing pads Ton recalls seeing when they were brought in, before they're stopped by another stormtrooper. "What's he doing out of his cell?"

Ton tries to straighten up; he can't find his balance, but he still reaches for the blaster hidden in his waistband, trying to keep the movement subtle. Before he can find it, though, Face tightens his grip on his arm, simultaneously holding him up and restraining him. "Transport to the base," he answers, the helmet's systems flattening and mechanizing his voice. "The other one took the deal. He talks, this one gets medical treatment."

"And you're actually taking him?"

 _Told you so_ , Ton thinks, distantly -- evidently the stormtroopers didn't think the promise of medical care was serious, either. Next to him, Face shrugs and says, "Don't ask me. Captain's orders. Zsinj wants them kept alive, I guess."

The other stormtrooper nods. "Want a hand getting him to the shuttle?"

"Thought you'd never ask." Ton's vaguely aware of Face shifting his weight, of another armored shoulder propping him up from the other side. But anything else they say sounds far away; he finds himself sagging in their grip, letting the two of them take more and more of his weight, and as they start moving he sinks entirely into blackness.

* * *

When he wakes up, he's somewhere sterile, medical. For a few disoriented moments he's sure he's still on Halmad, that the Raptor officer kept her promise and had him hauled off to the base's medical facility, and then, slowly, his surroundings come into focus -- it is a hospital room, but it's one he knows well, although it's less familiar from this angle.

Eventually he gets the story, or at least part of it, out of a medical tech: he's been back at Hawk-bat Base about four days, three of them spent unconscious, one drifting in and out of lucidity. The ruptured kidney -- "I _knew_ it," he rasps, and the tech laughs -- has been removed; he'll have to watch his luck, he's running increasingly short of organs.

He asks about Face, and catches himself, ridiculously, expecting to hear that he's been faithfully keeping vigil, that he's only gone now because he's been dragged away, ordered to get a few hours' sleep.

"Haven't seen him since they released him," the tech says instead, and Ton, his mood turning sour, shoos her out of the room so he can get some sleep himself.

It's another two extremely boring days before they'll let him leave. He spends the time failing to charm the tech, being deliberately obnoxious to anyone who tries to visit, and, secretly, expecting Face to rush in at any moment.

It's not that he _wants_ a big dramatic fuss, obviously. It's just that it seems like the Face approach to this situation, the Make As Big A Scene As Possible approach. And it's strange, anyway, to go this long without seeing him -- they haven't even known each other that long, but they've barely been out of each other's sight since training.

When they do release him, he finds Face in his quarters, perched on the edge of the bed.

Ton opens his mouth to say _where the hell have you been_ , but before he can speak Face is on his feet, pulling him into a bruising hug and saying into his shoulder, "Oh, _fuck_ , it's good to see you in one piece."

"Give or take a few components," Ton says, and when Face snorts he can feel something ease in his chest, a little surge of relief that, whatever happened planetside -- whatever either of them said in those half-remembered hours -- things seem back to normal between them now. He pries himself loose, takes a step back and looks Face up and down. "What about you? The tech said they held you overnight."

"Some scans, some bacta patches." Face shrugs. "Oh, and most of a day with a neural stimulator, to make sure I didn't lose any of the brain cells I actually use."

Ton nods soberly. "Important. There's few enough of them."

"I didn't come here to take this abuse," Face protests, and then hesitates and adds, "Actually, I didn't come here just to check up on you, either."

 _Oh_. Ton scrubs a hand across his face. "Look, Face, I… you know I'm not holding you to anything you said down there."

"What if I say it again?" Face steps closer again, gets a hand on his hip and leans in toward him.

Ton brings a hand up between them, pushes him back. "You don't want this." He can hear a little bitterness creep through, as hard as he tries to keep it back. When Face shakes his head and leans in again, Ton shoves him back harder, lets his voice turn sharp. " _Garik_."

That makes Face stiffen, and he stays back, though his expression is still stubborn. "You can't say I'm delirious this time."

"No." Ton sighs. "You're -- I don't know, you're having some kind of reaction to trauma, psychology was never my specialty. Face, be serious."

Face cracks a tired smile. "That's not _my_ specialty. But this is as serious as I get. Ton--"

"I'm too old. I'm too bad-tempered. I'm--"

"Twenty percent mechanical," Face finishes for him.

Ton gives him a mirthless smile. "We've had some adventures since then. I'm up to twenty-five."

"What would convince you?"

"Face--"

"Just answer me. Humor me." There's no humor in Face's expression, though; he's stepped back a little, a silent acceptance of Ton's refusal, but his eyes are still fixed on Ton's and his expression is intense, focused. "I want this. I want you. But you're so sure you've got no future that you won't take one when it's in front of you. What do I have to do?"

He shouldn't do it. He has nothing to offer, nothing to promise. Face deserves better.

"If it's that you don't want _me_ ," Face starts, and Ton breaks. He steps forward, fast, aggressive -- backs Face up against the wall, grips him by the jaw and kisses him hard and says " _Idiot_ " into his mouth.

When he steps back at last, Face follows him, letting him break the kiss but staying with him. "Ton," he says, his breath warm against the side of Ton's neck.

"I'll try," Ton says, and barely recognizes his own voice, rough and low. "I can't promise you much. But I'll try."

"That's all I want," Face says, and leans in to kiss him again.


End file.
